Converting E-AC3 to AC-3 in MPC-HC with ffdshow

[Mooncake]

Hello,

Wondering if anyone can help me with this please. I'm currently using MPC-HC on Windows 10 to play content. The PC is connected to my receiver using an optical cable. I have a 5.1 setup but out of the Dolby formats the receiver I have only supports Dolby Digital (AC-3) and not Dolby Digital Plus (E-AC3). I've spent some time researching this and came across two suggested solutions, use ffdshow or use AC3filter to convert the audio to AC-3. I decided to give ffdshow a try but I've never used this before so I'm not sure which settings to configure. I want E-AC3 audio to be transformed to AC-3 by ffdshow but I want all other formats such as AC-3 and DTS to be untouched by ffdshow and bit-streamed to the receiver.

From what I can tell the following steps need to be taken to achieve this:

- Configure MPC-HC to not use internal filters for EAC-3:

For this I'm unsure on which ones to turn off. Under Source filters there is no filter for E-AC3 only AC-3. Under Transform filters there is a filter named AC3-/EAC-3/TrueHD/MLP. Do any of these need to be turned off?

[Attachment 87833 - Click to enlarge]

Additionally under Options > Internal Filters > Audio decoder in MPC-HC Bitstreaming is turned on for everything except E-AC3.

[Attachment 87832 - Click to enlarge]

- Add the ffdshow audio filter to the external filters in MPC-HC.

The audio related ffdshow filters I can see in here are ffdshow Audio Decoder and ffdshow Audio Processor. I'm not sure if I should add the audio decoder or the audio processor for this. I'm guessing it might be the decoder though as the settings for ffdshow audio open in the ffdshow audio configuration. Under the media types the defaults are selected.

[Attachment 87831 - Click to enlarge]

- Configure ffdshow to convert E-AC3 to AC-3 and pass everything else through without trans-coding.

In ffdshow audio decoder configuration I've currently set the following settings:

Under Codecs all formats are set to disabled except E-AC3 which is set to libavcodec.

[Attachment 87829 - Click to enlarge]

Under Output > Pass-Through has AC3, TrueHD, DTS and DTS-HD selected but E-AC3 is not selected. Under Output > Output format for uncompressed or decoded streams the following options are selected: 16-bit intger, AC3 (S/PDIF encode mode) is selected and Encode 5.1 streams only is selected.

[Attachment 87830 - Click to enlarge]

Are the settings configured so far correct? I'm also still unsure on which internal filters to turn off as well as if setting only E-AC3 audio to be converted should be configured under the Media Types list for the ffdshow Audio decoder external filter in MPC-HC or if it should be configured in the ffdshow audio decoder configuration. If it can be configured in either place are there any advantages to doing it a certain way?

If anyone knows how to do this it would be really appreciated.

Thank you.

[johns0]

The only thing i can say is buy a better receiver,i did that and it cured all my issues with audio,if you can't afford to do that then wait for someone else to help you on your audio fix.

[ProWo]

An easier way is to convert the EAC3 audio track into an AC3 audio track and mux this AC3 track to the movie.

[cholla]

First I agree with ProWo.

For MPC-HC I can not test because my receiver plays e-ac3.
My computer is also HDMI out to my receiver.
I do not have an optical audio out or in.

I use LAV filters for MPC-HC & I do not have ffdshow installed on my OS.

Setting up with LAV filters MPC-HC looks like this:

[Attachment 87834 - Click to enlarge]
You won't need the bottom 3 as they are for other formats.

All the Internal filters should be unchecked except for CDDA.

The Audio Decoder is set like this:

[Attachment 87835 - Click to enlarge]

[Mooncake]

The only thing i can say is buy a better receiver,i did that and it cured all my issues with audio,if you can't afford to do that then wait for someone else to help you on your audio fix.

I recently got the receiver used for a very good price, it is older now which is why it doesn't support DD+ but it is a good receiver. I don't want to throw out a perfectly good device just because of a format issue. It would feel incredibly wasteful to throw away something that is otherwise working perfectly because of something that can be fixed in software for free. I don't see any need to replace it at this point, especially considering a significant amount of the content I watch has in DD (AC-3) or DTS audio which it supports.

An easier way is to convert the EAC3 audio track into an AC3 audio track and mux this AC3 track to the movie.

Thanks, I have considered doing this but it would be too time consuming to do for hundreds of videos. Even if they're processed in a batch it would end up being a lot of time and resources to process.


I've sent a couple more hours digging and troubleshooting and I finally found the solution to this if anyone else comes across this post. The settings I had were most of the way there already but there were a few changes needed. The following are the steps for achieving this with MPC-HC:

• Download and install ffdshow. Make sure you install the version that matches your player (i.e. the “64-bit” version for a 64-bit player. “generic build” for a 32-bit player).
• In the Windows sound control panel, make sure you enable “Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device” in Your_Playback_Device->Advanced
• Open your media player
• Go to player Options, then External Filters->Add Filter->”ffdshow Audio Processor”. Highlight the filter. Set to “Prefer”. Double-click on the filter to go into its config.
• Enable “Resample” in the left-hand sidebar. Click on Resample, set Resample to 48000 Hz.
• Enable “Mixer” in the left-hand sidebar. Click on Mixer, set output to 3/0/2. Enable “LFE”
• Go to “Output” in the left-hand sidebar
• AC3 (S/PDIF encode mode): checked
• Click Apply, Ok to close filter config. Click Apply, Ok to close player config.
• Restart the app and play test channel-callout content from the sample audio section below.
• (OPTIONAL) If you only want to re-encode certain formats, remove the “ffdshow Audio Processor” filter and add the “ffdshow Audio Decoder” filter instead. Repeat all the changes above in the filter’s config, then click on “Codecs” in the left-hand sidebar and set every codec you don’t want to re-encode to “disabled” under the Decoder column and the ones you do to a libXXX decoder.

Source: https://r-htpc.github.io/wiki/audio#my-sound-system-only-supports-decoding-dolby-digit...-dolby-digital

I went with using the ffdshow audio decoder instead of ffdshow audio processor as I only wanted DD+/E-AC3 to be converted.

The settings I have are as follows:

AC3/E-AC3/TrueHD/MLP unchecked under Internal Filters > Transform filters in MPC-HC settings:

[Attachment 87836 - Click to enlarge]

ffdshow Audio Decoder added into external filters in MPC-HC settings. Media types are left as default:

[Attachment 87837 - Click to enlarge]

E-AC3 set to libavcodec under ffdshow Audio Decoder config > Codecs. All other formats set to disabled.

[Attachment 87838 - Click to enlarge]

Resample turned on and set to 48000hz

[Attachment 87839 - Click to enlarge]

Mixer turned on, output configuration set to 3/0/2 and LFE turned on:

[Attachment 87840 - Click to enlarge]

Under Output, pass-through turned on for everything except E-AC3 and AC3 was turned on under 'Output format for uncompressed or decoded streams' I left the bitrate set to the maximum of 640 to minimise any generational quality loss.

[Attachment 87841 - Click to enlarge]

After configuring as per above and testing the E-AC3 streams get converted to AC3 and everything else is passed through.

[Mooncake]

First I agree with ProWo.

For MPC-HC I can not test because my receiver plays e-ac3.
My computer is also HDMI out to my receiver.
I do not have an optical audio out or in.

I use LAV filters for MPC-HC & I do not have ffdshow installed on my OS.

...

Hey thanks for this. I'm going to look into it out of interest. I ended up solving the issue using ffdshow after a few more hours of research and testing but my reply is still pending approval, I think because it has a link in it.

[pandy]

Use ffmpeg - it will be less complicated and more stable than ffdshow for sure, if you need to use ffdshow then IMHO it is better to use some application like:
https://www.videohelp.com/software/GraphEdit
https://www.videohelp.com/software/GraphEditPlus
https://www.videohelp.com/software/GraphStudio